Peace Demonstration in Avenida Universidad

Since the night of the violence on my street it has been clear that everyone at UPR is ready for the violence to be over and there to be more security on and around campus. In fact, I think it is very admirable and respectable how the entire student body has come together in this past week to iniate peaceful protests and conferences in order to promote change. The students are very active here in communicating their rights and needs for change. This issue of police brutality came to a peek moment last Thursday,or so it seems, and the students want it to stop immediately.

So, it was posted on campus and all over my dorms that this past Thursday there would be a peace demostration, where all students would wear white and come out to Rio Piedras for live music and commradery to show their support for peace between students and police force.

The night was definitely a success because tons of people showed up to demonstrate their support, plus the media pretty much covered the whole night. There were school chants and drums being played, and nothing got out of hand. My video posted at the top of this post shows the view from the balcony of a sports bar we were at watching the demonstration.

Capoeira

Every Mon-Wed and Tues-Thurs, my university offers free Capoeira classes. Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian art form that combines martial arts, music, dance and an intense workout basically. This art form was brought to Brazil in the 16th century by slaves from Africa. Its purpose remains to be a matter of debate with theories ranging from views of Capoeira as a uniquely Brazilian folk dance with improvised fighting movements to claims that it is a battle-ready fighting form directly descended from ancient African techniques... Just a little history for ya!

So, I went to this class last night and it seriously kicked my BUTT! It is a 2-hour class, which I'll be going to every Tues and Thurs now, taught by a man actually from Brazil, who speaks Portugese almost the entire class-- which also makes it a little difficult! It was so intense though from push-ups, to crunchs, to all kinds of high kicks and other martial arts moves I don't know what to call! It was fun though and should whip me into shape real fast!

Life on the Island...

After the chaos on campus Thursday night, I decided to get away with a bunch of other exchange students to go to the beach. We went to Isla Verde on Friday, which is a popular hotel/beach area in San Juan.

Since Hurricane Bill missed us, we still got huge waves on the coast where we were on Friday as effects of Bill. We had a lot of fun getting beat up by the waves, even at like waist-level water!

We stayed on Isla Verde until it got dark (which here means like 7pm, ha) and made human pyramids and just had a good time.

Then on Saturday, we went to a beach in Old San Juan, which is called Escambron. Escambron looked like it was out of a movie, it was so gorgeous! and of course, my camera was dead there so I don't have pictures of it yet. It was clear water, and the beach curved around so that on either side you looked, you saw old Spanish forts.

Escambron was absolutely packed, because it was saturday, and I think this is probably one of the most tourist-like beachs because of the scenery.

Violencia en la Avenida Universidad (Violence on my street)

Thursday night, August 20, was not a good night to be out on my street, Avenida Universidad. What started as something foolish turned into an intense brawl between the students and cops.

Word on campus on how this violent night began is that during a typical thurday night in Rio Piedras, where the streets were filled with college students hanging out in the bars and all in the street having a good time, one rather intoxicated student threw a bottle at a police officer.

This caused the police to overreact, and call back up, after back up until there were over 100 cops in the area shooting off tear gas in all the bars, in the streets, and even in my dorm area!! This gas was making it hard for people to breath, as my friends who were out in this said, and making everyone very scared.

I watched from the 10th floor of my dorms, as the cops pushed people down on the ground, and even hit some of them! Then, the cops started shooting off "bean-bag" guns and hit an innocent girl, who lives in my building, and she had to be carried in by four people, covered in blood.

This is a video taken from my dorm which you can watch some of what happens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-21A19patx4

Or, this video shows the cops pushing people around:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoxT5nq6lAY&feature=related

And, you can also go to youtube.com and type in the search "Violencia en la Avenida Universidad" to see tons of other videos.

There have been strikes and protests by the students ever since then, and there are all kinds of meetings being held to do something about the Violence inflicted by the cops on innocent people standing by the scene.

It has been on Univision- spanish channel a lot in the past couple days, and is supposed to be covered nationally as well. I am just glad no one got seriously hurt in this chaos and pray that this madness can come to an end.

Friday night in Old San Juan...

A big group of us wanted to see what Old San Juan was like at night on Friday so we went out there. We went down there with 10 girls, 2 guys to venture to a place we heard was fun from some locals called “Laser” in Old San Juan. I absolutely loved Old San Juan- the streets were narrow, cobblestone streets with tropical, Spanish style buildings. Laser was definitely a Puerto Rican “clubbin’ spot!”…not exactly my scene! Ha, and we were the first people there so that was fun. So, we stayed there for a while and then went to Café Guariunex, a small bar down the street, to hang out for a little bit.

Saturday, Treavor and I went to the mall- Plaza Las Americas- also the largest mall in the Carribean. It was my favorite mall ever maybe because it had every store in our mall + European stores that we don’t have! It was amazing. But this is a picture of this Puerto Rican group of probably 10 year-olds that were performing when we were there. They were soooo good!!! This kid in the front might be the next Puerto Rican Micheal Jackson…he had some serious moves!

First Weekend in Puerto Ricoooo!!

On Thursday night, I went out with a bunch of exchange students I've met here in our area we live in called "Rio Piedras." We were told that Thursday nights in Rio Piedras are kind of a big deal because they are "college nights" and this is the biggest university on the island. So, sure enough, we walked out of our dorm area and looked down the street and it was completely packed for almost 2 blocks!

We didn't stay out too late but it was neat to see how our area is the palce to be on Thursdays--especially since I don't have class on Fridays! Also, on our way home we stopped at a street vendor making food and tried "mofongo" for the first time. Mofongo is a puerto rican, and carribean dish that is fried green plantains in olive oil and garlic, which can be stuffed with meat or seafood, but i just tried mine plain!

Thats what it looks like above-- yea it doesn't look too appetizing but it wasn't too bad!

On Friday, since a lot of us didn't have class we decided to go to the beach! We actually have to take a cab to beach because we on the southern outskirts of San Juan. We went to a beach called Ocean Park in San Juan-- it was right in between Old San Juan and Isla Verde (two well known areas here in San Juan). Ocean Park was cool because it was a strip of beach area that was clean and beautiful and not crowded at all because its an area with hardly any hotels!

First Days of Class at UPR

Classes have officially started here at UPR-Rio Piedras! First, on Monday, I had Marketing Research, in which I was the only exchange student in that class. On Monday, I almost had a panic attack because I had so much trouble understanding my teacher! She showed up to class 25 minutes late, on her phone, with no syllabus or anything with her except her purse! It was not what I am used to I guess. She spoke so fast it made gave me a headache trying to translate, and especially because this is a business class I do not know the vocabulary for it as well as other classes. But, I had the same class again today and I was able to understand her the majority of the time, so I feel relieved…maybe it was just first class jitters!
On Tuesday, I had History of Puerto Rico with Treavor and another exchange student from Arizona. I understood the teacher so well because he spoke so clear and the vocabulary is easier for History I think too. The teacher also talked to us after class and wanted to know where we were from (because we pretty much stand out in a crowd of Puerto Ricans I guess!) and he told us if we ever don’t understand something to talk to him after class and he would be happy to help.
After that we had History of Hispanic America, which did not go well. I had this class with Treavor and the same girl again and none of us understood the teacher well. He had a deep deep, raspy voice---not good for trying to understand another language! So, it is still add/drop period so we are going to switch out of that class tomorrow I think.
Today I had that Marketing Research class again, and I had Marketing Strategy and Planning for the first time tonight. I was so happy that Marketing Strategy and Planning went well too! The teacher was very animated and easy to understand, and also he used power points, which made a huge difference because I could read what he was saying and take notes better!
Besides class, I have had too much to do this week to do anything fun or exciting yet. But, the university does offer SALSA CLASSES!!!! They start next Tuesday for the beginner classes and I am going to go with some other exchange students I met! Watch out for me on the next season of So You Think You Can Dance…

University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras: The Beginning

Today is my second day in Puerto Rico and I like it much better than yesterday already. When I first arrived, I was completely overwhelmed. First, the accent of Puerto Ricans is much different than that of Spanish speakers from Spain. Here, they drop the end of their words—for example, they drop all s’s pretty much always. Like the Spanish word, “Vamos”, which means, Let’s go, Puerto Ricans say “Vamo.” So, when they talk fast and drop the end of words so much it’s hard to understand. Also, they speak so fast and with a mumble almost. Anyway, it will just take time to adjust to the speaking here.
So, Treavor and I met a few other exchange students at the airport, along with the coordinator for exchange students and we went straight to our dorms from the airport. Our dorms, Torre Norte (Picture on the right), are the dorms for exchange students (there are only maybe 75 of us) and other local Puerto Ricans. But it is definitely considered the worst of the dorms on campus because it is soooo old and extremely dirty with NO air conditioning!! And it is about 90 degrees and very, very humid too! I have not stopped sweating since I have been here probably. I feel lucky at least that I do not have cockroaches in my room (yet) like another girl I was talking to that lives here.
So, today we had orientation bright and early in the morning with all the exchange students. We toured the campus, which is extremely beautiful and lined with palm trees and some kind of fruit tree that I haven’t figured out what it is yet. The campus is clean and the buildings are very pretty with some spanish colonial style influence I think. In the orientation I met a ton of other exchange students—probably about 20 from the U.S., and the rest from all over the world. Considering the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras has 20,000 undergraduate students, 20 students from the U.S. is not many either! Anyway, it was really neat to meet new people from Austria, France, Spain, Switzerland, Jamaica, Brazil and probably more places I can’t remember right now.
After orientation, Treavor and I met an exchange student, Andreas, from Madrid, Spain who we talked to for a long time, and then he invited us to the beach with him and about 20 other students from all over Spain. They were all extremely nice and we spoke solo espanol the whole time at the beach! We went to the beach in Condado, which I guess is an “area” of San Juan about 4-5 minutes away in a taxi. The sand and water were beautiful and clean. The water felt like bath water too, it was so warm!
Anyway we had a great time at the beach and came back around 7pm. By that time it was dark already, which it is hard to get used to it getting dark at 7pm I think! We ate dinner at Subway because it seems that only American fast food places are around our dorms and campus. On campus we have Burger King, Pizza Hut, Sbarro, Quiznos, Church’s Chicken, and Subway! It is weird being somewhere with all these American businesses, shops and restaurants, like Pep Boys, Blockbuster, Curves, Baskin Robbins, Foot Lockers, etc., when everyone speaks another language and no one is truly American!